Julie an Ide Hill artist and animal lover has come up with the perfect way to combine her two greatest passions in life. She has set up an animal sanctuary in her back garden and uses her farmyard friends as inspiration for works of art.

A trained zoologist, Julie moved to Ide Hill 14 years ago and soon set up the local branch of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Her love of wildlife is deep rooted and she wasted no time in making the most of using her farmland for helping rescue animals.

"I am lucky enough to have some land here," she said. "And I like to put it on paper. The fact that I can look after animals is great but I am only doing a tiny bit here. A lot of people don't appreciate animals and treat them badly. If I could I would go and buy a rainforest or go and save the orangutans."

Julie's art includes acrylics, watercolours and even exotic mirrors, but her favourite is batik - a method of dyeing materials using wax.

Although she began expressing herself artistically relatively late in life, Julie's mother was a sculptress and with so much beauty to inspire her on her doorstep she said it was hard not to produce something to somebody's liking.